WMN RUN MCR – Manchester Marathon

Taking a step back from the ultra distance that our ladies covered in the summer of 2015 for Race to the Stones 100K, we wanted to focus more specifically on marathon distance for our next project. Like ultras, marathons too have an very uneven gender weighting on average. Always similarly to ultras, this is on average 80 : 20 male to female. in the UK, with Manchester marathon being in the low 20’s.

So with this in mind, we aimed to use the streets of Manchester as our next goal. All 31 of us, from Manchester, London, Newcastle and Liverpool, heading out to run the distance of 26.2 miles. For many of our ladies it was their first marathon, for some it was a case of securing a PB or just letting go and enjoying the whole thing. The conditions on the day weren’t of a typically northern nature. There wasn’t a rain cloud in sight, and we were dealt with 20 degree heat. Don’t get us wrong, we most definitely hail the British summer, but when you’ve trained throughout winter, this has the potential to change the aim for that day’s goal. Weather aside, marathon debuts were ran, PB’s were taken home, Gill Bland ran an incredible 2.58 , and every lady we took finished, with a medal (and for some, a beer) in hand.